The Sharpest Kiss by Elizabeth Myles (the false prince .txt) 📕

it wouldn’t. But then he felt it sink home, plunging into the flesh of her cold, dead heart.

Celia’s lovely cerulean eyes stared up at him, wide open in horrified surprise. She crumpled to the floor, and Nathan followed her down, a grunt issuing from him as they both hit the carpet, she on her back and he on his knees.

“Nathan,” she croaked, clawing at him. “Nathan, NO…”

Die, he thought, ignoring the insistent gouge of her fingernails through his shirtsleeves. Just DIE already!

Long seconds drew by, during which there was more flailing and complaining from her, more hissing, spitting, and snarling, but then…Celia seemed to gradually grow languorous. She stopped struggling. Pain flashed across her face. With a pathetic groan, she went limp, her arms dropped to her sides, and her eyes slipped shut.

Nathan sat back on his feet, eyeing her cautiously. “Celia?” he asked.

She didn’t move, didn’t even twitch.

A sanguine feeling started in Nathan’s chest. She was dead, he thought with an inner burst of laughter. Goodness gracious, he had done it! It was over! A shout of triumph built inside him…but it curdled in his throat when he realized almost a minute had now passed since the stake had entered her heart, and the master still wasn’t turning to ashes. That couldn’t be right.

“Celia?” He leaned closer, perusing her placid face. “Celia!” He jabbed his finger into her stomach a few times.

Her right eyelid flipped open and she glowered at him. “Did you really think that would work?” she huffed.

“Ahh!” Nathan startled. He swung his fist at the stake, ready to slam it down further into her chest, but she caught his wrist before he could make contact.

“I am a master, Nathan. An immortal.” She flung his hand away. Both her eyes were open now, but narrowed down to slits, and her mouth was beginning to curve into a smile.

She was far from dead, Nathan realized with an agonized clench deep in the pit of his stomach. In fact, aside from the bloodied stake jutting out of her chest, Celia looked…perfectly fine. If rather annoyed with him.

“I am forever!” she screamed. And then she started to cackle, rocking from side to side, literally rolling on the floor laughing, as the humans of this era liked to say.

“No,” Nathan said, watching her in horror.

“Are you kidding me right now?” he heard Jessica groan from somewhere behind him.

My sentiments exactly, he thought. He grabbed Celia by the shoulder and ripped the stake out of her heart. He brought it back down, stabbing her again, punching a new ragged hole right beside the first.

“Ouch!” she cried, frowning petulantly. “Stop it, Nathan! Listen to me! It’s actually a good thing you can’t kill me because I have something you want.”

“What could you possibly have that I would want?” He twisted the stake further into her heart. He thought he felt it poke through the skin of her back and meet resistance. With a surge of exultance, he brought his fist down on the end of it, hearing a satisfying crack as it hammered itself between two floorboards.

“Augh,” Celia said, and he was gratified to see a stream of blood bubble out from between her lips. Maybe if he kept this up, stabbing her over and over again, she would eventually die. He snapped off the end of the table leg, creating a second stake, and raised it over his shoulder to test the theory. Celia held up her hands. “Nathan, please! You’re Marta’s get, aren’t you? One of her runts?”

He paused at the sound of his master’s name, frowning, but he didn’t say anything.

Celia smiled, her teeth outlined in blood. “Yes, I thought so. I smelled her all over you. I’d bet you’d love to know where she is right now, wouldn’t you? So you could kill her and turn yourself back? Well, I know where she’s hiding! Think of it, Nathan, if you destroyed her, you’d have your humanity again. You could wed that pudgy sow hovering around behind you and sire a whole litter of piglets off of her. You could be happy! Just let me go and I’ll tell you where Marta is. But keep poking at me and I won’t divulge a word. I vow to you, there’s no way you can find her without my help.”

Nathan watched her for a second, his frown deepening. He looked up, as though he were meditating over what she’d just said to him, or maybe praying for guidance. After a few seconds, he let out a defeated sound. He dropped the second stake and staggered to his feet.

“Yes.” Celia was elated. “I knew you’d see reason!” She tried to sit up but couldn’t. The table leg kept her securely fastened to the floor, and being stabbed seemed to have weakened her too much to remove it. “Help me up!” she ordered, kicking her legs and stretching her arms out to him.

Instead of touching her, Nathan leapt straight up and grabbed the metal flag he’d spotted dangling directly overhead. It was anchored to the ceiling with steel cable but, with one savage pull, he ripped it free. Bits of plaster rained down his arms and drifted into his hair. As he landed again, he shifted his grip on the flag pole, wielding it like the sickle it was meant to represent.

“No!” Celia howled as she realized what he meant to do. Her hands went to the stake in her heart, working desperately to yank it free. She was too weak, though, and her fingers only scrabbled futilely off the blood-slickened wood. She stayed stuck right where she was, trapped like a bug on a collection board. Panic flooded her bulging eyes. “You can’t do this to me!” she shrieked, writhing and pounding her feet against the floor. “You’ll never know where Marta is! Never, never, no one will ever help you—”

Her yowling was cut off as Nathan brought the flag down on her neck. The cut was clean, the metal slicing all the